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Grom
Grom are Half-giants were bred into existence in Raurin by cruel sorcerer-kings centuries ago. Intended as gigantic warriors and laborers, half-giants are a cross between humans and giants. With the creation of their race came also the inception of strife, as with any people kept in bondage. Some half-giants found that their forced breeding had somehow engendered within them a spark of psionic power. With the aid of this secret power, many half-giants escaped their circumstances to seek a new home deep in the desert, where they were free to discover their own destiny. Personality Grom, for the most part, retain human sensibilities. They are curious, interested in cooperation and communication, and have a general tendency toward kindness. (Of course, there are exceptions.) Because many half-giants are refugees from days of bondage, during which they could pass down few racial traditions, they are quick to pick up the local tastes, morals, customs, and habits of the areas in which they settle down. Physical Description Half-giants typically stand from 7 feet to nearly 8 feet tall and weigh from 250 to 400 pounds, with men noticeably taller and heavier than women. Most half-giants have tightly braided black hair and deep coppery complexions. Half-giants often prefer grandiose dress when they can afford to do so, sporting fanciful or intimidating clothing. Relations Most other humanoids are put off by half-giants due to their abnormally large size. In fact, many are first taken for young (if strangely well-groomed) hill giants. Upon getting past their initial trepidation, however, most other humanoids find half-giants of good alignments to be outgoing, kind creatures. The most powerful warriors in the world, grom seem content to simply live in humanity's shadow. Half-giants tend to be childlike in their moods and behaviors and will often adapt an imitative posture of charismatic or well-liked characters in their party. A grom will very, very rarely be the dominant voice in a party. Alignment Grom tend toward good alignments, but as always, there are a few bad apples. Half-Giant Lands Grom recently settled in the deepest parts of hot deserts. Of the land whence they originally hail, half-giants speak little, other than to say that the cruelest deserts of their current lands are similar to those of the lands where they once toiled. Religion Grom, as a race, have a particular disdain for religion, sometimes going out of their way to speak badly of a deity. It's not that they don't believe, it's that they don't believe that a deity necessarily always has the best interests of its worshipers at heart. Individual giants have grace enough to keep their observations to themselves should they note a goodly companion with pious inclinations. A few even take up the cloth themselves. Language Grom speak Common. Those with higher than average intelligence often learn Giant. Names Half-giants have a childhood name and a given name, usually given by friends or the community in which the half-giant originally grew up. Most half-giant names reflect some aspect of the desert that half-giants inhabit, though a few strange place names are also thrown in (apparently remembered from their former homes of long ago). Male Names Sandking, Dunewalker, Sunharrower, Drywell, Stormrider, Desertstrider, Saltwalker, Raam. Female Names Oasis, Sandrose, Breath, Goldflower, Sweetwater, Raincaller, Nibenay. Adventurers Grom have already wandered far to found their desert settlements. For many, wanderlust is a way of life, and seeking after glory, fortune, or even a life of high adventure is something every half-giant can understand and accept -- though most half-giants are content to stay in their settlements and listen to the tales of faraway lands from those who've adventured there. Grom Racial Traits * +2 Strength, +2 Constitution, -2 Dexterity: Half-giants are tough and strong, but not too nimble. * Giant: Half-giants are not subject to spells or effects that affect only humanoids, such as charm person or dominate person. * Medium: As Medium creatures, half-giants have no special bonuses or penalties due to their size. * Movement: Half-giant base land speed is 30 feet. * Low-Light Vision: A half-giant can see twice as far as a human in starlight, moonlight, torchlight, and similar conditions of poor illumination. He retains the ability to distinguish color and detail under these conditions. * Fire Acclimated: Grom receive a +2 racial bonus on saving throws against all fire spells and effects. Half-giants are used to enduring high temperature extremes. * Powerful Build: The physical stature of half-giants lets them function in many ways as if they were one size category larger. Whenever a half-giant is subject to a size modifier or special size modifier for an opposed check (such as during grapple checks, bull rush attempts, and trip attempts), the half-giant is treated as one size larger if doing so is advantageous to him. A half-giant is also considered to be one size larger when determining whether a creature's special attacks based on size (such as improved grab or swallow whole) can affect him. A half-giant can use weapons designed for a creature one size larger without penalty. However, his space and reach remain those of a creature of his actual size. The benefits of this racial trait stack with the effects of powers, abilities, and spells that change the subject's size category. * Automatic Language: Common. Bonus Languages: Draconic, Giant, Gnoll, Ignan. * Favored Class: Fighter. Class Suggestions As stated before, half-giant characters do best when in a melee combat role, especially one that takes advantage of heavy armor or psionics. Psychic warrior (from the Expanded Psionics Handbook) is the half-giant's favored class, and for good reason. It allows the half-giant access to psionic powers while giving them access to plenty of feats and armor proficiencies. Another excellent choice from the Expanded Psionics Handbook is the soulknife. Although such a character could only form mind blades for a medium-sized creature (although the half-giant has the powerful build racial ability and can wield weapons as a Large-sized creature, they are still Medium-sized, and can therefore only make mind blades sized appropriately), it does provide the half-giant character with plenty of melee attack options, although such a character would probably want to invest in feats to gain proficiency with heavier armor. The samurai class from Complete Warrior is a great choice for an oriental campaign. A half-giant samurai using their stomp power and their intimidation skill can easily take control of a small group of enemies and herd them into position. The soulborn from Magic of Incarnum allows a half-giant the ability to power themselves with incarnum, while focusing on their specific alignment. Such a character can make good use of the class's smite ability and take advantage of feats such as Psycarnum Infusion to power their soulmelds. The Tome of Battle provides two excellent choices for half-giant characters: the crusader and the warblade. With their usually high hitpoints, half-giant crusaders make excellent use of their steely resolve and furious counterstrike class features, turning this character into an automatic counter-attacking machine. A half-giant warblade goes the other way and can be very aggressive. Class features can help improve the generally poor Reflex saves this character will have, and with a fairly good Intelligence score, the half-giant warblade can be dishing out more damage ever before. The knight and duskblade from the Player's Handbook II can provide a half-giant with less traditional options. A half-giant duskblade can effectively protect themselves from attack while wielding arcane magic (especially when they possess the battle caster feat from Complete Arcane). A half-giant knight is a great mounted warrior and can help provide their allies with protection from attacks as well. For players looking for more traditional options: the cleric, fighter, paladin and ranger classes are all excellent choices, as they provide the half-giant with excellent fighting abilities and allow them to protect themselves properly. In addition, the magic provided by the cleric class can be used to enhance the half-giant's natural abilities and turn them into a true representative of their deity. Feat Suggestions Half-giants have little in the way of feats that improve their racial abilities like the standard races do. There are however, some excellent options that can be taken advantage of. Both Half-Giant Stomp and Half-Giant Thunderer from Complete Psionic are good choices, and are the only racial feats available. Both will improve the character's stomp psi-like ability. If you're planning on using this racial ability, these feats are must-haves. If your character finds themselves fighting a lot of spellcasters, then Deflective Armor from Races of Stone is a great choice. It will help protect the half-giant from touch attacks while they are psionically focused. Players can also take advantage of the half-giant's powerful build ability to take feats like Fling Ally or Fling Enemy, also from Races of Stone. If you're looking to increase your half-giant's Reflex saves, feats like Lightning Reflexes (Player's Handbook) and Insightful Reflexes (Complete Adventurer) can be very useful. This last feat is especially attractive to half-giant warblades who can effectively use double their Intelligence modifier instead of their Dexterity modifier to determine their Reflex saving throws. Prestige Class Suggestions Much like with classes, grom do very well with prestige classes that help them focus on either psionics of melee combat. One of the best choices for a defense-conscious half-giant is the iron mind from Races of Stone. A half-giant psychic warrior who becomes an iron mind is guaranteed to be extremely difficult to take down. Having an identity crisis? Try the stoneblessed prestige class, also from Races of Stone. This will allow a half-giant to bond with the goliath race and gaining some extra abilities in the process. Such a character could then take advantage of the numerous feats available only to the goliath race, like Heavy Lithoderms and Earth Fist. The cryokineticist from Frostburn provides a half-giant character with the ability to wield the powers of psionic cold and protect themselves against cold abilities with an ability similar to their racial protection against fire effects. Grom Paragon The subjects of breeding experiments in centuries past, half-giants possess the strength and vitality of giants with the intelligence and adaptability of humans. These beings also possess a spark of psionic ability that sets them apart from much of their brethren on either side of the family tree. Half-giant paragons are those rare half-giants who have embraced their uniqueness and strove to improve themselves even further than the experiments that created their race. Adventures Half-giant paragons can turn to adventuring for any number of reasons. Some desire to seek out new places, while others covet material wealth. Many attach themselves to a group of people or a small community and adventure as a way to help their adopted clan in any way they can. Having no homeland to call their own, many half-giant paragons use adventuring as a way of finding either themselves, or a place to call their own. Characteristics Half-giant paragons are often curious about new people or places that they see, and are usually interested in learning customs, habits, expressions and history. They tend to get along well with most people they encounter, and are generally seen as quite accommodating. Those who choose to abuse the half-giant paragon's kindness can find themselves quickly shunned or put in their place, sometimes through violence. Alignment Half-giant paragons can be of any alignment. Most are good, but there is no clear tendency towards either law nor chaos. Half-giants are ultimately the product of their environment, and half-giant paragons can be found from all alignments. Religion Many half-giant paragons shun religion, a disdain that goes back to the creation of their race. Half-giant paragons of an extreme alignment sometimes take to worshipping a deity, but that is often a pragmatic following, or at the very least, lip service. Some half-giant paragons take to worshipping elemental deities, who meet the average half-giant's expectations of being powerful, yet aloof. Background With a tendency towards wanderlust, half-giants, including paragons, often leave their home to see some of the world at a fairly young age, only later settling down to start a family of their own. Those half-giants who grew up in a loving home leave with fond thoughts of home as they face their journeys. A half-giant who suffered abuse, enslavement or worse may be escaping from the torments of their youth or leave seeking to gather power in order to one day get revenge on those who wronged them. Races Half-giant paragons delight in meeting new cultures and races of all kinds. They get along well with members of most races, as long as those other races treat the half-giants fairly. A half-giant will quickly learn to avoid members of a race that have continually done them ill. Dragon-related races are the exception though, and are usually met with a sense of caution by half-giants. This apprehension likely goes back to the genesis of their race, but is easily broken if true friendship is offered to the half-giant. Other Classes Half-giant paragons favor martial classes as well as those who use psionic abilities. While they can see the need for caution, they often have no patience for sneaking around or long complicated plans. Many half-giants see a power equal to psionics in arcane magic, but they are often distrustful of divine caster due to their general dislike of deities. Game Rule Information Half-giant paragons have the following game statistics. *Abilities: Half-giants often take an active role in combat, so Strength is often quite important. Charisma is important for powering the character's spell-like abilities, and Intelligence is important for several half-giant paragon class skills. *Alignment: Any. *Hit Die: d8. Class Skills The half-giant paragon's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Autohypnosis (Wis), Climb (Str), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Knowledge(psionics) (Int), Profession (Wis), Search (Int) and Swim (Str). See Chapter 4: Skills in the Player's Handbook for skill descriptions. Skill Points at Each Level: 4 + Int modifier. Class Features All of the following are class features of the grom paragon prestige class. *Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Half-giant paragons are proficient with all simple and martial weapons, with light and medium armor, and with shields (but not tower shields). *Powers per Day: At 1st and 3rd level, a grom paragon gains new powers known, maximum power level known and new power points per day as if he also gained a level in psychic warrior. He does not, however, gain any other benefit a character of that class would have gained (such as bonus feats). This essentially means that he adds the level of half-giant paragon to his level in psychic warrior, then determines new powers known, power points per day, maximum power level known and manifester level accordingly. If a half-giant paragon has no levels in psychic warrior, this class feature has no effect. *Resist Flame (Ex): A half-giant paragon's racial bonus on saves against fire spells and effects increases by 2. *Talented (Ex): A half-giant paragon gains 2 bonus power points at 1st level *Mental Disruption (Ex): At 2nd level, a half-giant paragon gains the ability to manifest mental disruption once per day as a psi-like ability with a manifester level equal to his half-giant paragon level. The saving throw is Charisma-based. (See the Expanded Psionics Handbook, page 115.) *Ability Boost (Ex): At 3rd level, a half-giant paragon's Strength score increases by 2 points. *The Grom Paragon *Level BaB Fort Ref Will Special Manifesting *1st +1 +2 +0 +0 Resist Flame, Talented - *2nd +2 +3 +0 +0 Mental Disruption +1 Psychic Warrior Level *3rd +3 +3 +1 +1 Ability boost (+2 Str) +1 Psychic Warrior Level Category:Grom Category:Giants